I have often wondered which would be worse: being a liberal law professor that looks like a short overweight comedian OR being a comedian that looks like an overweight lesbian with no judicial experience?
Patton Oswalt for Supreme Court Justice!!!
Have you noticed how many different warning labels there are on things these days? There are warnings on prescription medicine, warnings on your kitchen appliances, warning stickers in your car, there are even warnings on your movies, music and video games. Pretty much everything has some form of warning label.
I don’t think these labels do anything useful for the consumer; I believe that warning labels solely benefit the manufacture. When you put a warning label on a dangerous product, all it does is provide the manufacturing company the ability to say “we told you it was dangerous, but you used it any ways.” This should be good enough. The “you were warned” defense should be an open and closed court case. Hot coffee burned you, well Duh!!! It’s HOT COFFEE!!! Not Guilty!
I think warning labels serve a distinct purpose. The label does a decent job at educating the consumer of dangerous of things, but that is where it should end. Cigarettes are harmful, but people are still going to smoke. Alcohol is bad, but people are still going to drink. Warning labels should not be used to social engineer society. Labels protect the supplier and inform the consumer.
Here are some warning labels that don’t exist, but should:
CAUTION – Eating vegetables may lead to a healthy lifestyle and weight loss.
DANGER- Bachelorette Party Supplies may cause premature impregnation by someone other than intended future husband.
WARNING – Condoms may cause loss of erection.
CAUTION – Computers may cause lack of sleep and pasty skin tone. Aversion to sunlight has been known to occur in some computer users. Tanning beds may counteract skin conditions.
WARNING – Eating too many snack cakes has been known to cause “trouble walking down narrow hallway” syndrome in controlled laboratory test subjects.
DANGER – Marriage can cause a loss of appetite (and we are not talking about food!)
CAUTION – Living within a double-wide trailer may result in lower wages, lower IQ and may attract tornadoes.
ATTENTION – Food goes on tines. Improper use of forks has been known to cause eye damage. Always use ‘the cork’ when inserted into eye.
CAUTION – Trojan Horse may contain Greeks, Feta Cheese and Olives.
DANGER – Eating hot wings may cause fiery rectal fury.
Can you think of any other things that need warnings that have not been invented yet?
As most of you know, teenagers are raging balls of overactive hormones. They are influenced by pop culture and whatever else their friends think is cool at the time. They are going out on dates and listening to music, then BLAM-O, they end up pregnant.
How does something like this happen? I blame the music!!! Certain songs seem to automatically raise the arousal level in young teen, but these songs also magically lower their inhibitions and impair their judgment all without the need for alcohol.
Ultimately, for most teenage boys, ANY song can be a song to have sex to. For gods sakes, most of them could screw to the emergency broadcast warning signal… BEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!! But, It takes certain songs to get girls to ignore the consequences of her actions.
(In no particular order) Here are FupDuckTV’s Top Ten Songs that Ultimately have Lead to Teen Pregnancy:
John Mayer – “Your Body is A Wonderland”
Lionel Ritchie & Diana Ross – “Endless Love”
Goo Goo Dolls – “Iris”Some notable mentions include: Keith Sweat, “Twisted”; Anything by Enya; The entire Garden State soundtrack; Air Supply, “Even the Nights are Better”; Poison, “Every Rose has its thorn”; “Picture” by Kid Rock and Cheryl Crow.
Parents – educate your teenagers about the dangers of these particular songs. They are going to have sex. Deal with it, BUT these songs are what will lead to unwanted teen pregnancies. Teens, when you do get your grove on, be protected. And for god sakes, Pull-&-Pray is not an effective form of birth control; she’ll just end up sticky and pregnant.
What songs do you think are most responsible for teenage pregnancies?
I recently learned that humans are working towards and getting close to eradicating another deadly disease from the planet. Over the course of modern man, there have been a great number of wide spread diseases and plagues that have threatened human life on on a mass scale: Black Plague, Scarlet Fever, Bird Flu and Swine Flu to name a few.
In 1950, the World Health Organization (WHO) began a full assault on Smallpox in effort to rid the world of the horrible disease. Because of vaccinations world wide and 30 years of diligent hunting of this deadly virus, the WHO declared smallpox to be eradicated in 1980. Hurray for our side! Go team humans!
More recently, the WHO organization has had its sights set on Dracunculiasis, also known as Guinea Worm Disease. For over two decades the world has tried to wipe out the guinea worm and humans are getting close to winning this battle as well. From what I understand, Dracunculiasis is one of the most painful diseases known to man. Guinea worms are ingested in tainted drinking water, grow inside the human body then bore out when they are full grown. Some of these worms can grow to be three feet long and as think as a spagetti noodle.
I was really surprised that some whack-job activist group has not been actively trying to stop the eradication of these different diseases. “Viruses and worms are living things and should be protected and should have rights in court and can’t be harmed and a sanctuary needs to be set up…” It seems that even PETA has its limits. “Don’t eat meat, don’t wear fur! guinea worm? Crush the little fuckers!”
During research for this article, I actually stumbled upon a website devoted to saving the guinea worm from extinction, Save the Guinea Worm Foundation. Thankfully this is a spoof website and damn funny at that.
With smallpox gone and the guinea worms on the ropes, what disease should humans go after next? My vote is Gonorrhea, also known as “The Clap”. Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted disease (STD) that causes some pretty nasty problems for men and women’s reproductive organs. Although I have never had gonorrhea, nor do I know anyone that has had the disease, it is my understanding that the clap is very treatable. Antibiotics typically stop gonorrhea relatively quickly.
So why not pick AIDS or Cancer to go after next? Yes, those are all worthy adversaries, but The Clap is curable. If we can detect gonorrhea and there is a cure, why do we allow it to keep spreading. You don’t hear of people naturally occuring gonorrhea, you get it from having unprotected sex. You don’t get it from touching an unwashed doorknob. I think the WHO should going after the low hanging fruit.
This is part two of yesterday’s interview…
DaVe: Do you follow a standard process: Sketch -> Scan -> Ink / LineArt -> Color -> Caption? Or do you use a different process? What software do you use to complete your digital art?
David Emerson: I actually usually do my comic completely digitally, but that sums my process up pretty well. I do a quick storyboard or thumbnail of how I want to comic to flow, sketch in more detailed figures, and then do line art over that and then fill in the lines and then shade. The only real difference is that I usually do captioning before I ink it.
I got an old graphire tablet a few years back and started out with that, but never really got good at using it. I picked up a shiny new intous4 not long before I started the comic and have been loving it. I still doodle during classes and lectures and whatnot, but I’ve pretty much been computer-reliant for sketching as well as inking and coloring and texturing and so forth for a while now. I use photoshop almost exclusively for the comic, but I sometimes use illustrator for logos and site work.
DaVe: Do you have a fulltime 9-to-5 or does UnderlingComic.com pay the bills?
David: Oh man, I wish it did. I’m currently working a part time job at a store doing accounting & food prep(and pretty much everything else in the store) in order to pay for college – which is my other major time sink. I also try to take on as many freelance artist jobs and paid character drawings and whatnot as I can, but I wouldn’t make enough off of that to pay for anything if I did it full time right now. I’m trying to catch a good internship right now to help that career path along.
Between that and my video game addiction, I’m still not sure how I manage to put in the six to ten hours for every comic twice a week. I’m the one guy on the internet who actually made a month’s worth of comics for a buffer before launching my site, but that’s fallen down to about a week, now. I hope to make some money off of Underling someday, but I haven’t gotten around to making any products yet, and probably won’t until I have a larger audience and some really good ideas. It’s still a very young comic, after all.
DaVe: Any favorite demon films? (influences on your story)
David:Omen’s a classic, and then there’s Constantine and Hellboy, but most of my influences for this project are other comics and books. Neil Gaiman of American Gods and Sandman and Terry Pratchett of Discworld are probably my two favorite writers around today. I sometimes take bits from Lovecraft and Tolkien too.
Most of my film influences don’t really have anything to do with demons, really. I take a lot from shows like Firefly that have a cast of really interesting characters who completely fail to get along and work together. I love the way they handle storytelling in Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. I also take a lot from all those cheesy old adventure films like Sinbad, the original Star Wars, and Clash of the Titans.
DaVe: Are you doing any conventions or appearances?
David:Not as a representative of my comic, no. I usually go to San Diego Comic-Con and PAX West for fun. I’ve thought about taking Underling on tour, but I probably won’t until next year or until I’ve made some products or books to sell.
DaVe: Where do you see Lazarus and Lilitu’s adventures heading next?
David:After Laz escapes the desert, I’ll be taking him to all kinds of crazy places. We’ll be seeing some more of Earth, the mesopotamian underworld, the celtic forest, and more over just the next three or four chapters. It won’t be long until he meets Lilitu and the other minions in the flesh, too!
I actually have the comic scripted to the end of the first book, and have it roughly planned all the way to the end, so I’ll try not to spoil anything too much. I will say that we’re almost past all the introductory running and screaming, and I’ll be getting into the meat of the overarching story soon.
I recently had the opportunity to interview David Emerson about his relatively new Web Comic, Underling. The comic follows the misadventures of Lazarus, a teenager that gets thrown into a world full of magic, cultists, demons, cat women and monkeymen. The story is quite gripping, the art is wonderful. I can’t wait to see where the story goes next.
DaVe: What made you decide to start your own WebComic?
David Emerson: I’ve been a big comic book fan from the start, and I got into webcomics about eight or so years ago. Started with Penny Arcade and 8-bit Theatre and then moved on to countless more. I’d been kicking around the idea of starting one myself for a long time, but didn’t think I could keep up with a gag-a-day strip and couldn’t piece together a fun and interesting storyline for a longer one. I tried starting a buffer for different comics a few times and just lost direction with the art and writing before giving up and moving on.
It didn’t help that I failed so hard at making myself practice drawing regularly, too. Eventually, in college, I started taking an art course every semester to force myself to draw, and started getting better and building up initiative.
At San Diego Comic-Con last year I bumped into a cool aspiring writer and ended up talking to her about starting up a webcomic together. It didn’t go anywhere, but it did get me thinking about it again. Finally, in August, after I woke up from the con induced coma, all of my inspirations finally added up and the idea for Underling popped up in my head. A few doodles turned into some research turned into a storyline turned into ‘Hey, dude! I got a great idea, could you make me a website?’ Things just sort of kept going from there.
DaVe: Where do you come up with your ideas and story-lines?
David: I’m a big history and mythology geek, and this comic is kind of my vent for that. I’ve always entertained thoughts about what life would be like if all the whack stuff that happened in mythology happened to normal people as a part of everyday life. A lot of religious stories are way crazier(and dirtier!) than the PC, watered down stuff you often learn in schools. For instance, there’s a greek god who ran around clubbing people with his own enormous – well, I probably don’t need to finish that thought.
Um, anyway, pretty much all of my characters are funny or unlikely takes on existing religious and mythological ones. A lot of my story archs are the same way. Since my comic is partially an excuse to make myself draw more, I’ve written some archs just to include characters and scenery that I enjoy drawing.
All of the ideas I get for the jokes and easter eggs and stuff are from watching too much TV, playing too many video games, and bouncing ideas off my friends and cartooning peers, who are all awesome and supportive people.
DaVe: Who are your artistic influences?
David: I have a lot of these. Samwise Didier, of Blizzard fame, is probably my ultimate artistic hero. He’s just incredible at packing loads of style and expression into all things human, animal, and inanimate. Adam Phillips, an accomplished animator, is another big influence. I’ve liked the art from DnD and video game books since I was a kid. I’m sure I’ve read enough traditional comic books over the years to have been influenced by them, too.
I look up to the art from Penny Arcade, Applegeeks, and Three Panel Soul a lot, but I’ve probably learned the most about doing art for webcomics from talking directly to other artists closer to my own skill level and swapping tips and tricks.
DaVe: What other WebComics do you regularly read?
David: Way too many! My favorite gag-a-day strips are Penny Arcade, Sinfest, and Three Panel Soul. Some of the more story based ones I usually keep up on are Order of the Stick, Gunnerkrigg Court, Gastrophobia, and Dawn of Time. I also read some that are a bit harder to categorize like Dresden Codak and Applegeeks. I follow a dozen more regularly and probably a couple dozen more off-and-on, but those are my favorites at the moment.
Since I’ve created my own comic and started bringing it in to the community, I’ve ended up finding a lot of hidden and obscure gems. I read so many comics that it cuts into the time I reserve for making my own!
Check back tomorrow for part 2 of my interview with David Emerson…
